Primary storage is directly accessible by the processor (central processing unit or CPU) in the physical computing device or virtual machine to which the primary storage is coupled, while secondary storage or auxiliary storage is not directly accessible by that processor. Secondary storage can be used to backup the primary storage. Software defined storage (SDS), and the software defined data center (SDDC) decouple software from the underlying storage and storage networking hardware. Yet, there are trade-offs in the various systems and solutions presently available. Direct attached storage (DAS) may have high-performance but places requirements on the software and hardware interaction, and may be difficult to scale. Direct attached storage does not generally support off-hosting, e.g., of backup operations and virus scans, etc., because the processor to which the direct attached storage is coupled, is directly involved with the virus scanning and backup operations. In addition, direct attached storage requires a backup window, as there is no application isolation. Direct attached storage often suffers from over provisioning of CPU, memory and network resources and may require a relatively large amount of copies of data in both primary storage, in order to support high availability, and secondary storage, to support disaster recovery. Network attached storage (NAS) and storage area networks (SANs) may offer scalability as shared storage, but have longer delays and slower latency than direct attached storage as a result of the bottleneck phenomenon. Business continuity needs may require specified backup windows, while the ongoing data explosion requires continuous backup and a data access model compatible with continuous backup. Performance needs require a shared nothing direct attached storage, while agility and simplicity require virtualization and public or private clouds for storage. All of these requirements are difficult to satisfy with current systems as the requirements are not able to be accommodated within current storage architectures.
It is within this context that the embodiments arise.